IT Notices: Planned infrastructure maintenance on BSC Central Systems
There will be a period of planned downtime on the BSC Central Systems applications from 22:27 (GMT) 27 January 2023 to 06:45 (GMT) on 28 January 2023. This outage is required for infrastructure maintenance on the BSC Central Systems applications including the Energy Contract Volume Aggregation Agent (ECVAA), Settlement Administration Agent (SAA), Central Data Collection Agent (CDCA), Central Registration Agent (CRA) and Balancing Mechanism Reporting Service (BMRS).
The Elexon Portal will be accessible throughout the planned downtime, but logins to user accounts will be disabled during the planned downtime. (The ELEXON Portal logins will be disabled in advance from 17:15 (GMT).)
How will I be impacted?
ECVAA
The ECVAA application and ECVAA Web Service (EWS) will be impacted by the planned downtime and in accordance with the procedures, common submission of Energy Contract Volume Notification (ECVN) and Metered Volume Reallocation Notification (MVRN) to ECVAA will be blocked and the ECVAA Credit Cover Percentage check will also be suspended. Following completion of the outage, the ECVAA Credit Cover Percentage check will be re-enabled and submission of ECVNs and MVRNs will be processed as normal.
BMRS
The BMRS website, API, Data Push and TIBCO services will be unavailable during the planned downtime. Following completion of the planned downtime, the data for all impacted settlement periods will be published as part of the normal BMRS recovery.
Portal
Elexon Portal logins will be disabled during the planned downtime.
What do I need to do?
You will need to arrange to submit ECVNs or MVRNs before the start of the BSC Agent Downtime on 22:27 (GMT) 27 January 2023; this will include ECVNs/MVRNs for Settlement Periods:
- 46 to 48 (inclusive) on 27 January 2023
- 1 to 13 (inclusive) on 28 January 2023
Please do this as early as possible to reduce the risk of them missing Submission Deadline. You may also wish to submit contract notifications for Settlement Period 14 on 28 January 2023 before the downtime, as there is only 15 minutes between the end of the downtime and the Submission Deadline for Settlement Period 14.
Will I receive ECVAA reports as normal?
No, the ECVAA Notification Report (ECVAA-I014), scheduled to run at 02:10 (GMT) will be suspended. The report will instead be run after the planned downtime at 07:15 (GMT).
Will the contents of any of the reports I receive be different?
Yes, the ECVAA Notification Report (ECVAA-I014) for 28 January 2023 may not contain credit limit and indebtedness information for the affected Settlement Periods. Indebtedness data will be accurately reflected for Settlement Periods for which credit checking first runs in normal mode.
Will there be any further communications about this downtime?
Yes, we will keep the Elexon Portal updated and will publish a further Circular on 28 January 2023 when the outage is completed.